Archive for December, 2009
A recent report released by Which? has stated that around four million households across the UK could drop into fuel poverty due to predicted fuel bill increases of 25% over the next ten years.
Added onto the fact that many householders are already worried about paying their bills, Which? have recommended measures to ‘future-proof’ your home and reduce energy usage.
Which? run an energy advice centre, to help customers make changes that can help them save money. Advice includes turning down the thermostat, turning off lights when you leave a room, blocking out draughts around the home, stop heating empty rooms and so on.
However, the three biggest measures that Which? recommend are to:
- Insulate your home,
- Install double glazing in windows,
- And replace your boiler with an energy efficient model.
The average cost for these three changes combined works out at around £5,350, which may put some people off.
However, the savings in energy bills mean that it will take just six years for ‘these investments to pay for themselves’ according to Which?.
Which? have also commented on the fact that the government will need to work hard to ensure that energy bills do not become too high for certain households. Conservatives have proposed loans worth over £6,000 for all households, and there are also plans in place to create carbon neutral homes within the next decade.
The Housing Minister, John Healy, has recently announced new proposals that will help to create a more ‘consumer-friendly’ Code for Sustainable Homes.
The code was brought in during April 2007, and was designed to help builders improve energy efficiency for new homes, as well as sustainability.
The code is based on a rating system for key areas of work, including waste, pollution, materials, management, ecology, CO2 emissions, health and well-being, water, and surface water run-off. Each area is then given a star rating.
If the property gets one star this shows that it meets the mandatory Building Regulations. However, those that are given six stars show excellent standards in terms of sustainability development.
Proposed changes announced by Healey state that the code will work with government plans to produce zero carbon homes by 2016. It will also be designed to help builders work within the code despite the current economic climate.
One way of producing more sustainable, eco friendly homes includes using double glazing in windows, which will prevent heat being lost and make the home naturally warmer.
Healey said of the code that it has ‘proved its worth but now is the time to make it a more user-friendly standard for consumers.’
A new report has recently revealed that those home improvements targeted towards the outside of the home will see the maximum return on investments.
The survey is an annual one, undertaken by the US National Association of Realtors (NAR) who say that eight of the top ten projects whose costs were recouped include exterior jobs that were worth less than around £8,500.
Upgrades, including replacing old windows and doors, or adding decking to the property, were seen to return over 80 percent of their costs when the property was then sold.
However, it is also important to realise that the survey showed that interior projects would offer the best return on investment overall – including by adding extra living space through an extension such as a conservatory (especially when double glazing was used to make the home more comfortable).
President of the NAR, Vicki Cox Golder, said of the survey that improving the external appearance of your home can give it ‘curb appeal’ which plays an important role when it comes time to sell.
It is the ‘first impression’ of your home that buyers will see – and having neat windows, doors and exterior features can greatly increase its value.
In a poll taken by Sainsbury’s Home Insurance earlier in the year, it was discovered that loft conversions were the most commonly planned upgrade in UK homes, with over 850,000 households planning to convert their roof space into extra living space within the next 12 months.
When it comes to giving yourself a Christmas present that will pay off all year round, many home owners are opting for home improvements that can help to make their properties more eco friendly.
Kate Scotter, of the Norwich Evening News, said that making even small energy efficient changes to the home could save an average household hundreds each year, and cut around two tonnes of carbon emissions – helping to protect the environment.
Take A Look At Your Boiler
Your boiler is one of the most important items in your home when it comes to energy efficiency. By choosing an A-rated boiler and replacing any existing boilers that are over 15 years old, it has been estimated by the Energy Saving Trust that you could save around £235 on your heating bills every year.
Scotter added that you can add an insulating jacket to your boiler at save a further £35 each year. The good news is that many people will find help replacing their boiler as part of the new boiler scrappage scheme.
Your Windows and Doors
Other important areas of the home include windows and doors, as around 20% of all of the home’s heat is lost through these areas. The best way to improve energy efficiency is to install double glazing as well as cavity wall insulation – again, helping you to save hundreds off your annual energy bill.
If you can’t afford large energy-saving measures then using draught excluders can also help to reduce the heat lost from your home.
Rated People have recently claimed that making homes more energy efficient, or even carbon neutral, need not be as complicated or as expensive as many people expect.
Rated People help people to find local tradesman for their homes, and have stated that there are a number of simple steps that residential property owners can take to help reduce the carbon emissions from their homes – steps that won’t cost the earth.
Check Your Energy Supplier
One of the first steps all homeowners should take is to check their energy supplier – how eco friendly are they? There are now many ratings in terms of how ‘green’ the major energy suppliers, and switching to a more eco friendly supplier can lower your carbon footprint instantly. Choosing your supplier carefully can also mean you’re investing in renewable energy technology.
Heating
When it comes to heating your property, you can help to save energy by using a log fire – avoiding any tanalised wood. You can also ensure that your home is naturally warmer – and that you can turn down your thermostat – by installing double glazing in your windows and doors.
Choosing your boiler carefully can also make a huge difference – by choosing a more energy efficient model you’re boiler will be turning more of its energy into heat. Many households will also benefit from the recently announced boiler scrappage scheme.
Offsetting Your Emissions
Lastly, you can help to offset your emissions by planting trees around your home.
By combining all of these measures, Rated People state that homeowners will find it a lot cheaper to reduce carbon emissions than previously thought.
Despite the fact that we are in recession, it has been reported that residential property owners are still spending and working hard to make their homes more eco friendly.
The Ethical Consumerism Report by the Co-Operative Bank shows that household spending on eco friendly services and products has increased from £6 billion in 2007, and £5.5 billion in 2006, up to £6.4 billion last year.
Home owners have worked hard to improve energy efficiency in their homes by installed measures such as double glazing windows, insulation and more – employing a number of local tradesman up to a total of £3.9 billion spent.
A further £1.8 billion was spent on green household appliances, and £1.9 billion was spent to upgrade boilers to more energy efficient models.
Some home owners are going even further to do their part for the environment, and a total of £333 million was spent on technology for renewable energy – an increase from £244 million in 2007.
On average, the bank claimed that a typical household spent £250 on green products in 2008.
The results of this report will be seen as good news to the UK Green Building Council, who recently called for greater action when it comes to making green improvements to residential properties. The head of the Council, Paul King, had recently claimed that homes need to be refurbished, rather than just have a new boiler installed.
The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has recently claimed that the government needs to do more to support energy efficient and low-carbon refurbishments on residential properties.
The organisation have recently claimed that the residential property market, and green housing improvements, offer ‘huge untapped potential’ when it comes to tackling climate change in the UK – as well as giving the economy a much needed boost.
UKGBC recently welcomed measures from the pre-budget report that promised to increase the spending on energy efficiency in homes, as well as introducing a boiler scrappage scheme for 125,000 households across the UK.
However, despite these measures they say that the government is still only ‘tinkering around the edges’ of what could be done.
Chief executive of the UKGBC, Paul King, said that householders need help with areas that go beyond just the boiler. This means working harder to improve insulation, installing double glazing windows and even making use of measures such as solar panels.
When it comes to residential property, King stated that, not only is it important to push forward with measures for new buildings, but retrofitting residential property with green measures could also make a huge difference.
As a result, UKGCB state that such work would create thousands more jobs for plumbers, builders, electricians and other tradesman.
Green measures can also help homeowners to save money over time, where energy consumption will reduce making bills cheaper yet keeping homes naturally warmer.
The pre-budget report recently announced that residential property owners will receive more help when it comes to making homes more energy efficient, cutting the heat that is lost thanks to new plans.
Chancellor Alistair Darling stated that a quarter of all UK carbon emissions come from our homes, which is why he feels it so important that we work harder to insulate our properties to help tackle climate change.
As a result, Darling announced that £200 million funding would be added to the Warm Front Scheme – a scheme that provides grants of as much as £3,500 to help cover the costs of home improvements that can make homes more energy efficient.
These grants are provided to owners of properties over the age of 60, those who receive certain benefits, or those with children under the age of 16.
Under the scheme, homes are assessed after which recommended improvements are given to help bring it up to standards of energy efficiency.
Measures to increase insulation in the home could include installing double glazing – an option that can dramatically reduce the heat lost through our windows and cut down on the cost of energy bills by around £135 each year. In some cases renewable technologies may be proposed, in which case the grant can go as high as £6,000.
Darling has said that around 235,000 homes have already benefitted under this scheme, and that the added funding will ensure that a further 75,000 homes will also benefit.
According to new figures, thousands of Scottish tenants are losing out as a result of landlords who refuse to make their homes more energy efficient.
This means that many people are paying higher energy bills that they should do, simply because landlords have not taken up the offer of interest-free loans from the government.
These interest-free loans have been designed to help homeowners make houses more energy efficient, but installing measures such as double glazing and insulation.
However, when it comes to landlords in Scotland, only five have so far opted for these loans to help improve their rental properties within the last year. In the Central Scotland area, only one landlord has applied for the loan.
The grants have been made available to landlords through the Scottish Government’s Energy Saving Scotland scheme. However, campaigners claim that the popularity of these loans has been ‘pathetically low’.
As a result, it is thought that energy bills will be higher for tenants living in rented properties – where measures such as double glazing windows could have helped to dramatically reduce fuel bills as well as helping the environment.
Spokesman of the Association for the Conservation of Energy, Chas Booth, said that the news ‘underlines the need for regulation to tackle high fuel bills and greenhouse gas emissions from this sector’.
Statistics show that 600,000 homes in Scotland are struggling with the bills and are in fuel poverty – a figure that has risen since last year.
GP practices across the UK are to be offered interest free loans of up to £500,000 to help cut down on their carbon emissions, it has recently been revealed.
A deal has been made between the Carbon Trust and the RCGP meaning that practices will be offered tens of thousands of pounds to make green improvements to their building.
These loans will be used to pay for a wide range of changes, including replacing old boilers with energy saving ones, making alternations to the structure of the premises, and installing double glazing to help make the buildings naturally warmer.
An RCGP scheme means that practices will be awarded a ‘green practice award’ if they use a website that helps them to calculate their carbon footprint, and subsequently take steps to lower it.
The loans offered to practices will be, according to the RCGP sustainability lead Dr Tim Ballard, ‘completely cost neutral’.
Over time, the costs of installing green improvements will be balanced by the amount that the practices save in terms of reduced energy bills. It will be worked out how many years it will cost to make the saving back, and each practice will only pay the Carbon Trust back when it sees those savings.
Ballard said that the website is planned to be live in 2010 after it was offered funding by the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
The website will allow practices to enter information including their use of energy, business travel, materials and any waste. This will all go towards calculating their carbon footprint.
